World Cup 2010 - discussions & random thoughts

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I guess I see your point. To use the hockey analogy, in this year's Winter Olympics, pretty much everyone assumed that if the USA made it to the finals, it would be against Canada for the gold. While I suppose it might have felt a bit better to beat what everyone considered the best team in the world, I don't think many Americans would have been disappointed had the US played some other team. (I realize that's easy to say in hindight, because the US lost that game, but I sincerely believe it would feel the same way even if the US won.)

My main point was that winning would (I assume) be the most important thing. A WC finals victory would feel much better than a WC finals defeat, no matter who you played.

I like rooting for the underdog, so I'll root for the Dutch. Just because Spain was considered one of the favorites doesn't mean the Dutch will lose - they already defeated one of the other favorites, Brazil, just a couple of days ago. And they get one more day of rest to prepare for the game than Spain. (I'm not sure how relevant that is though, it seems like the difference between four or five days rest between matches would be marginal.)

 

True, but you can't blame us for being a little disappointed that we can't play against Germany

I'm convinced it will be a great game and just as nervewrecking!

 

@Drugar, don't forget: we have two historical enemies. One is Germany, and the other is Spain.

 

Hi Morgoth,

As I mentioned above, we have historic relations to both countries, but with Germany, it's more recent

Or were you aiming on soccer? I don't follow soccer very much, except the world and european cups off course, so haven't got any knowledge about soccer history.

 

Are we talking about wars, here? Cause these were 65 and 362 years ago... Every (European) country has a history with the 2 countries if we (still) would take that into account. Or are you talking about some match against Spain that we lost that I don't know about? The word "enemies" suggests you're not and you might as well add France, England, Iraq, Portugal and the Roman Empire to that list of historical enemies.

I never saw any country other than Germany as our rival.

Singing our national hymn before duelling Spain will be nice, btw. The latest phrase of the first couplet of "Het Wilhelmus" says:
I have always honoured the king of Spain.

 

Heh.

As for the finale vs.your nemesis, in the words of Dr. Doofenshmirtz: "Perry (the Platypus) is my nemesis, I can show him everything!"

It's just not the same without one's arch-nemesis.

 

I never saw Germany as a football rival anyway, only as a historical rival. As mentioned before in this thread, Portugal and Brazil are good football rivals. Portugal considering the dirty tricks they used when they disqualified us in 2006, and Brazil because they disqualified us in 1998 and 1994 with penalties. Of your list of other historical enemies, none of those were as important as Spain in the history of our country. NL became an independent nation because we rebelled against the Spanish and their religion. It's like with the US and England. (the iconoclasm of 1556 could be our version of the Boston Tea party ) The English never conquered this country, neither did Iraq and Portugal. The French 'liberated' us and we never had a beef with the Romans because the people who lived here during those times, the Old Frisians and Batavians, have moved away into obscurity during the Migration, we have no real connection to those people.

 

Yeah, I admit that Spain and Germany would be our main nemeses, when it comes to history and oppression. But this is about sports. Although wars should never be forgotten, I find it a bit tedious and meaningless to involve them with nowadays sport events or to use them as rivalry feeders. But this whole drift off to Dutch History lessons was most likely unintended (sorry for bringing it up!).

Back to football.
I agree that Portugal and Brazil are 2 of our greatest rivals. But totally different to Germany, I don't care who kicks the 2 of them out. "Good riddance." But I'm quite sure that view will change within a few years to something more friendly. When certain players leave their teams, for instance, or when they stop doing theatrical, ugly and whimpy. AFAIK, Spain is a South European country that doesn't do these "typical" things. I'm quite fond of them, I like their play and yes, I'm not really at ease knowing we have to face them in the final. Still, loosing to them is not a shame either.

Vamos Naranja! Olé!

 

Go Spain!

 

Go down Spain!

 

If Spain wins, I win $140!

 

If Oranje wins, I will win happiness.

I prefer absolute joy on sunday.

 

If Netherlands win on penalties, and Germany beats Uruguay by 2 goals, then I can still win my $140. But if Uruguay wins and Netherland wins before penalties then it's bye-bye $140.

 

Why the Germans haven't BBQ'd Paul the octupus yet is beyond me. Now he picked Spain as the winner.

Time to prove his eight legged @ss wrong!

 

A lot of people I've been speaking to have been cheering for Spain to win, as that means we'll be the only team without a loss. I don't know though - I think I'm going to be cheering for Netherlands come Monday.

 

@Aldeth

Speaking as a Spain supporter, Spain isn't the favorite in this final. Unless you put stock in that stupid (yet strangely accurate lol) Octopus theory going around.

They may have started the cup as the favorites based on their winning the Euro 2008, but their World Cup campaign so far has been pretty disappointing I must say. I personally consider it a bit of a miracle that they made it to the final the way they've been playing. Sure, they were improving with each game after that horrible loss to Switzerland, but the way Germany was playing, I was expecting them to get schooled.

The Dutch on the other hand have been consistent the whole tournament and have (iirc) no losses so far and a superior goal difference.

Neither team has won the WC yet.

So I don't know about "favorites" or "underdogs" at this point. But it promises to be a hell of a match!

 

Luckily Mani the Parakeet predicted that The Netherlands is gonna win, so we still have a chance! And come on, who do you trust more: an eight legged freaky looking octopus or a nice family friendly parakeet?

 

Edited...
Hey... This is confusing. I read several things on the net. One states that Paul picked Holland for the winner, another said it's gonna be Spain... (Seems the correct one is Spain)

No matter, he'll be wrong whatever country he picks. He was wrong at the EC final two years ago, when he picked Germany as the winner, but Spain won. So no worries for the Dutch!